


Together

by okoriwadsworth



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25428394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okoriwadsworth/pseuds/okoriwadsworth
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Together

(Author’s Note: This is a story of how Laurel becomes the Black Canary in S1, right after the Martin Somers thing. Also, if you’re a fan of the people who are evil in this story, please do not take this as a chance to flame me or read me for filth or whatever else you might feel the desire to do. Last thing: There will be a trans villain in this story. She is not, repeat NOT, a villain because she’s trans. She’s a villain because, well, you’ll see. I am an author; this is a creative experiment. That’s all it is. With that said, please enjoy our feature presentation.)

**_At the Starling City Convention Center……_ **

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(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Dinah Laurel Lance was, and she could admit this to herself without feeling like it was a personal moral failing, intensely stubborn. It had served her well during high school, where she was the class valedictorian all four years down to a combination of high-level intelligence and the kind of will that would make a pitbull blush. And then in college, and law school, she used that same will to make herself a lawyer faster than people suspected.

But it hadn’t all been great. She realized, now, that it had been her stubbornness that had made her relationship with Oliver so difficult the first time. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, she could see that she had made plans for them and not consulted him even slightly. She loved Oliver Queen with her whole heart, and if she had known then what she knew now, she would have gone slower, enjoyed the simple things. Because, and she hated that she was beginning to feel this way, she thought about him ever since he returned from that island. She had been so angry at him, so unbelievably angry, that she said things she instantly regretted. And instead of lashing out, he appeared to turn inward and become meeker, and seemed to regret saying anything to her at all.

Then, that nonsensical attempt to make her think he was the same old Oliver Queen the night of his return party. Sure, she saw through that in a heartbeat. How could she not have? But she also knew what he was doing. He was giving himself some space to calm down, to get used to himself a little bit without people demanding things from him that he could not yet give.

But it all changed the night Martin Somers sent that damnable China White after her. Right then, she knew what she felt wasn’t, COULDN’T be, wrong. Oliver fought for her. Even with his bare hands, he was willing to battle for her. The part that killed her, and had her deciding to make a change right then and right there, was knowing that she couldn’t do the same. Sure, she had those self-defense classes her father had made absolutely sure she took. But when she saw what China White and Oliver Queen, and later John Diggle, were doing she got, almost immediately, just how far apart in skill she was from… whatever in the world Oliver was to her. Right then and right there, she realized she wanted to join the fight for Starling City.

So, as she began to put together blackboards and make notes of what she would need, Laurel realized two things: The first was that she liked having a plan. There was nothing she hated more than waking up at the start of the day with no idea what to do next. But before she addressed the other thing, because since she was not looking forward to having that internal discussion, the plan was the thing.

Step 1: Get in insane shape. She hated how she couldn’t run longer than a mile without gasping for air, and the less mentioned about that time she did yoga or tried to lift weights the better. But she knew that in order to do what she wanted, she needed to get in the kind of shape that would make that easier. Grabbing her phone, she found a local CrossFit gym with an Olympic Weightlifting team in the basement. Starling City CrossFit was where it’d begin.

Step 1-B: Learn everything she could about fighting. She had no airs, or illusions, about where she was right now. She figured that she could probably, if she got really lucky, handle a few muggers. But imagining that the city was always going to be some kind of welcoming beacon to the sort of people who want to challenge the Hood, she couldn’t possibly help him without being at least good enough to not be an utter liability. She knew she could just goof off and peruse those martial arts tutorials she found on YouTube, but it was probably better to be taught as much as she could from someone who would push her. This Ted Grant guy seemed like a good place to start. He had been a multiple time world kickboxing champion, the first American ever to challenge Thai fighters to Muay Thai bouts in Thailand, and was generally a badass of the 1st order. This was someone who could help her add depth to a base she knew wasn’t strong enough to really save anyone, herself at the top of the list.

Step 2: Take criminal investigation classes. Sure, she knew how to read files and find the threads in e-mails and public correspondence. But she also needed to know how to interrogate people, read a crime scene, and get the instincts needed to find information before Starling City’s police got a hold of things and, to her experience, bungled things more often than not.

So, there it was. The plan. Now to the other piece of business. Honestly, she was still unsure as to how it happened, and what he suffered through to make him as good as he was at it, but there was no doubt in her mind now. Oliver Queen was the Hood. And just as fast, she also realized she couldn’t steamroll through this and try and force him into admitting it. She’d have to play this delicately, because if she didn’t, he’d shut down around her. She knew that.

So, while still doing her job, she’d become this other thing. And when the time was right, she’d join the Hood in his fight.

**_Meanwhile, at the Walter Jones Memorial Courthouse……._ **

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(Felicity Smoak’s POV)

Playing god was fun. It had started with her father, the Calculator. He had been the one to show her what you could do, the lives you could bend to your will, by doing nothing more than typing out a few lines of code on a computer. For when she wasn’t behind a computer, she was invisible and un-noticed. No one paid any attention to the mousy brunette who sat at the back of the class. And on those rare occasions when they did, it was to mock her. So that first heady night when she hacked the computer of the queen bee of Las Vegas High School, and released her nudes and reliance on anti-depressants and hard drugs, she didn’t just feel like the hero she knew herself to be in her heart. She felt like a QUEEN, and chasing that feeling was a perfect addiction.

And so, she did. But soon, leaking private info wasn’t enough. She had questions no one could answer, questions like what happened to her mother in childbirth. So, with the aid of her computer, she got those answers. And what she found ENRAGED her. So, she set out to ruin the lives of those people who ruined hers. The doctor who couldn’t save her mother? She drained his accounts, convinced his hospital he was a secret drug addict, and eventually left him wrecked and broken in a small shack on the Texas-Mexico border before sending a SWAT team to end his life after calling in a bomb threat.

The nurses who just watched as she wasted away? Well, what she did to them was worse. She turned their bank accounts into nothing. She replaced their anti-depressants with opioids, and when they got hooked, she put their bank accounts in the red and burned through their overdrafts.

But she realized she needed a day job, some way to throw people off of the scent and the trails she hoped she hadn’t left behind. So, when she got a job offer with Merlyn Global, she took it with both hands. The world would kneel before her, Overwatch. And if they didn’t? They’d be forced to.

For a moment, a hot moment, she worried she had walked right into a trap. It was Mr. Merlyn’s smile that had set her worries ablaze. As long as she could draw breath, she would remember that smile. It was the smile of someone who knew they had just broken all your plans, and that if they wanted, they could keep breaking them for as long as they felt like it. But beneath that smile, she saw the demon he had been trying to hide. This was a man who could do things, great things, and things she couldn’t do. So, she stood up, keeping her eyes on him the whole entire time, and closed and locked the door. “Tell me what you really want to do and I’ll help you do it” she said, and soon they began discussing their plans.

That was why she was at this courthouse after all, to take a quick glance through federal and state records to see who was left around for Tempest. She was cataloging as she went, separating the remaining members into two groups: people who had been confirmed to be in the WITSEC program, and people who hadn’t. For the former, she’d slow-play their pain and suffering. She couldn’t send the addresses of these people to the Dark Archer, because it wouldn’t be a smart plan. But the people who hadn’t? They could be visited by Malcolm Merlyn’s personal executioner, and until it was too late, no one would see the pattern.

It was brilliant. There was no one who could stop her.

**_5 weeks later…._ **

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(Oliver Queen’s POV)

There were things about his life since coming back from Lian Yu that Oliver Queen was coming to grips with. For one, Master Sergeant John Diggle was incredibly helpful. He didn’t know how in the world he had even thought about doing this without someone who had ins to as many government agencies as he did, while also being a sparring partner and someone who had taught him the finer points of interrogation so he didn’t have to rely on torture. Hell, John Diggle had even begun to show skill in arrow fabrication, giving him some new trick arrows based on things he had struggled with during his three tours in Afghanistan.

But at the moment, his biggest issue was that there was someone new in the city, doing the things he should have been doing this whole time. Oliver knew he had been distracted with this whole thing with the Dark Archer, and figuring out who kidnapped Walter Steele, but he hadn’t fully been able to wrap his head around how much until right now. Whoever this woman was, she was standing up for shopkeepers in the Glades, innocent schoolkids walking home in Capitol Hill, and doing everything to make his city a better place while he was focusing all of his attention on the stuff closest to him. And when she wasn’t saving lives, she was being someone friendly and kind to the neighborhoods under her watch. Channel 52 had gotten footage of her playing the local neighborhood kids in PS 24 in Double-Dutch and hopscotch,

And then, one night, he saw her working. Suddenly, like getting hit by a lightning bolt, it felt like he knew everything about this woman even though he couldn’t see her face. Whoever she was could clearly handle herself, even in just a long-sleeved t-shirt, balaclava, sweatpants, and weightlifting shoes. Sure, her movements were still a little choppy and nowhere near as fluid as they could have been but for what she was dealing with, it was good enough.

But he could tell that this mystery woman, whomever she happened to be, was missing some fine details. She hadn’t figured out how to fight against a whole lot of people, or the value in making sure someone was completely knocked out. Maybe it was because she didn’t have the oomph to put people away with one blow quite yet, or that she had some mental block about using that level of force, but that was a real problem. He knew there would come a day when she’d fight an opponent who didn’t go down as easy, and for some reason, he was beginning to feel a terror in the pit of his stomach at realizing that.

Switching that off, and returning to his role as impartial observer, he realized it was a mental block. Because, loaded as she was with muscle and clear power in both her physical frame and the way she carried herself, he figured that there was no way at all she couldn’t hit hard enough to knock someone out if she wanted to. But she wasn’t like a walking brick. No, instead she moved with agility and speed.

And so, as she dispatched the last person, the Hood figured it was time to make his presence felt. Whoever this woman was, whatever she could be, he needed to help her, he realized now.

So, he dropped down to stand in front of her, his bow back on his back with his hood still up before transforming his voice into the raspy growl that everyone associated with the Hood.

“You can’t do this. Not like this. I respect that you are trying to save this city just like I’m trying to do. But you need to think beyond muggers and small-scale crime. Ask yourself what’s going wrong above the street. When you get that answer, come and find me” Oliver says, before firing a grappling arrow up to a nearby roof.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Oliver had never talked to her that way. She supposed it was kind of fitting that he didn’t know he was actually talking to her, and probably assumed it was just some random woman who had grown tired of seeing the violence in her city and wanted to do something about it.

And, looking at herself from the outside, she could see where the confusion she came from. Her CrossFit coaches remarked that she took to weight training, and cardio, with tremendous ease. Add to that the fact that she had been spending a lot of time with Ted Grant getting her fighting skills improved from the admittedly meager base that her police self-defense classes gave her, and it seemed entirely reasonable that someone she still held a great deal of fondness and affection for would never have expected that she was beneath the balaclava.

But as she walked back to her hide-away where she had left her “day job clothes”, as she was beginning to think of them, what Oliver said underneath the mask stuck with her. Was she really thinking too small? What was she missing?

And then she remembered the news broadcasts that she had seen about that Dark Archer who had been trying to bait the Hood into a meeting. She heard from her father, who blessedly had stopped drinking and instead focused that addictive streak in his personality on becoming a better detective and a better cook, mentioned that the SCPD’s Major Crimes unit was pretty damned sure there was an inside man feeding this Dark Archer the information he, or she, needed.

She’d work on it tomorrow. Right now, she wanted a bacon cheeseburger and some fries.

**_The next morning…._ **

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(Malcolm Merlyn’s POV)

As he finished his morning drills and training with both a Chinese dao and his traditional recurve bow, Malcolm Merlyn could not help but think for a moment of what had happened to him over the past decade. From the time his wife was murdered by one of those subhuman mongrels in the Glades, to now where he was prepared to eliminate the entire neighborhood off of the map, it had been a fast ride with very few obstacles. Those he had seen, he either bought off or had brutally murdered either by his hand or by routing money through multiple shell corporations to a network of hired guns.

The last obstacle he had left proved to be the most dogged, and the most personally offensive to his sensibilities. Lord knows he had tried to get rid of this Hood person, impersonally, for what felt like WEEKS. Hell, he had hired Gilberto Barrera and Floyd Lawton to get the job done and they couldn’t seem to be able to. So, all because this annoying little shit wouldn’t seem to take the message and STOP, the Dark Archer would have to challenge him and beat some understanding into him.

If he was being honest with himself, though, he was admittedly kind of looking forward to the challenge. Ever since he had begun training to mold himself into a dark figure of vengeance, into the man who would destroy his city and rebuild it into something better, he had always wanted to battle against an opponent who was worthy of him and of his skills. So, having to defeat this Hood felt like the best chance he had to get that to happen.

When that was done, then, there’d be no one left to challenge him. Sure, he had heard rumors about some enterprising lawyer looking into his works, but she could be liquidated or bribed. The rumors of that local hero fighting in the Glades? He, and the prodigious talents of Felicity Smoak, had hidden himself from anyone’s view well enough that by the time she figured out the game that he was playing, time would run out. All he had to do was defeat the Hood, and that would be that.

**_Meanwhile, in an apartment building in Capitol Hill…._ **

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(Laurel Lance’s POV)

As she finished drawing her hypothesis on a connected network of blackboards, Dinah Laurel Lance knew absolutely how it must have looked. Even to her, someone who was neck-deep in pulling apart a conspiracy that she genuinely hadn’t known existed before now, the concept of what she was seeing still seemed to be utterly ridiculous. Malcolm Merlyn, Tommy’s father and a humanitarian businessman of the first order, was engaged in a deep conspiracy to destroy the Glades and rebuild it in his own image. What’s more, it seemed like someone in his employ was slowly pulling away a whole bunch of people who had declared state’s evidence and weren’t already in federal Witness Protection.

To the best of her ability to put it all together, every person who was on the list had been killed by the Dark Archer, the same guy who was challenging Oliver’s alter ego every night to a battle on television. Either Merlyn was using this Dark Archer as his personal hired gun, or there was something else. But what was it? What was she missing?

As she went and refilled her mug of coffee, she realized she needed a 2nd pair of eyes on this, someone who could see the big picture in the detail work she was stuck in.

That, because most everything her mind went to these days was doing that, brought her to Oliver. If she just was strong enough to tell him, he would be helping her right now. She was absolutely sure of that.

Right then, the bombshell hit. She could show it to Oliver. Just to be safe, she took detailed pictures of everything. If someone figured out what she was doing, or if her landlord barged in and thought she was somehow trying to defame Malcolm Merlyn, that’d be bad. Slipping her iPhone into her back pocket she walked into her bedroom and changed into the clothes that she wore for her “2nd job” as she was thinking of it before putting the files and info she had come up with in a nondescript box behind the Olympic barbell her coaches at the local CrossFit box had let her take home to practice with.

It was time to ask the Hood for help.

 ** _A few hours later at Merlyn Global_** ……

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(Jade Diamond’s POV)

All of her life, Jade Diamond had felt different from her peer group. At first, she believed that it was down to the knowledge that she was a girl trapped in a boy’s body. She just knew, in her very soul, that as soon as she was legally able, she’d move away from Olympia, Washington and make the drive to Starling City to do something about it. But, as the days got closer, the hole didn’t close with the knowledge it was about to get fulfilled.

If anything, it got bigger and louder in her chest until all she could hear was the sound of the hole. Then, one day, one of the football players made a smart-ass comment to her and she backhanded them halfway across the room. Jade had always been big for her age, and stronger than most of the boys on the football team without ever actually feeling the desire to lift weights.

What happened after the football player fell to the ground in sections, though, was different. For the first time that she could ever remember, the hole closed up a bit. Sure, she could still hear it but it wasn’t as loud now.

And for a while, she tried to ignore it. Tried to ignore the feeling of knowing she could hurt people, and how good it made her feel. So, the first day she could, she hitched a ride down to Starling City and began the process of transitioning.

It was a slow process, one filled with lots of doctor’s appointments and certification letters for things. And because she wasn’t exactly swimming in money to begin with, she ended up walking into the Salty Dog one night and asking for work. She knew it was a crime bar. Everyone in town knew what you were getting yourself into if you walked into the Salty Dog, but she didn’t much care. Work was work, and the kind of stuff she was willing to do had to pay well.

Even after her transition, there was still a hole, she realized. Crime filled it. Violence filled it. Sure, it wasn't the dignified life everyone else she knew who was trans wanted her to be living. But she liked doing stick-up jobs and selling heroin. It was fun for her. Who were they to deny her fun?

And then she took a job working for Malcolm Merlyn as private security. He had to know what she was about, the sort of things she had done. Hell, she obliquely used some of her past “employers” as references.

That interview was weird, because he had told her she was hired and then informed her she needed to go to this address on the back of a business card to get fully trained up for the “off-the-books” jobs he’d have her doing. That felt odd, but when he explained that she’d remain fully paid while she did so, it lessened some of her fear.

Sure, David Cain beat the hell out of her some mornings. But she learned all the skills to fight, more than she had had before.

Because she liked being violent, and she liked hurting people and seeing them get hurt by others. Tonight, was going to be a fun night, she could tell.

**_Meanwhile, at the Queen Mansion…._ **

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(Oliver Queen’s POV)

Laurel. He could not believe Laurel had come to him at night, and told him about the pictures she took and the files she had left in her apartment about a conspiracy Malcolm Merlyn was neck-deep in. And as he thought about it, and thought about what he was telling her, the penny dropped and he instantly knew what was going on. Merlyn and the Dark Archer were the same person.

He knew what he had to do, on an intellectual level. He had to get those files before anyone figured out what was going on. And if he could think, if his mind could stop whirring, he would figure out a good way to get in and out without being seen.

The trouble that he was having, though, was that he couldn’t think. The only seed of a thought rattling around in his brain at the moment was the notion that somehow, Laurel knew. Lord knows he hadn’t told her. There was no way he wanted her in this life at all, wanted her as close to death and pain as he was on a nightly basis. She made him better, he was sure of that now. But to have her by his side, to have her joining him in fights? The thought of that terrified him and excited him in equal measure. This was a thing he’d have to think about for later.

So, as he got behind the wheel of his Ducati 1199 Panigale and headed to Laurel’s house, he remembered a lot of things he had to do. He grabbed his bow, and his quiver. He put on his suit, even as his hands were shaking from an indefinable stress.

But, as he headed to Laurel’s apartment, he didn’t remember to check to see if he was being followed. He **REALLY** didn’t clear every room. So, when Malcolm Merlyn’s enforcer Jade Diamond hit him on the back of the head with an empty bottle of wine, he never saw her.

(Jade Diamond’s POV)

The Hood had become something of a boogeyman for people in her line of work. It was said, over beers at the Salty Dog, that whoever was under the cowl had been trained by Mossad, or some other highly-secretive international organization. And now, because he was distracted, she had him. Maybe just a peek before she took him to Malcolm Merlyn? What, exactly, could be the harm in that?

So, as she lifted the hood up, she wasn’t thinking anything of it. And then she saw who it was under the hood. Oh, Mr. Merlyn would **_have_** to know about this.

**_90 Minutes Later, at Merlyn Global’s Worldwide Headquarters…._ **

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(Malcolm Merlyn’s POV)

Of course. It had to be Oliver. Someone who was like family to him, whose father had been involved with Tempest since the very beginning, had been the cockroach who just would not die. Well, this was a minor twist in the plans.

As he thought of it further, though, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t prepared for. It just would take a slight turn from what he was thinking of originally, but he could still get exactly what he wanted.

He wanted an ally, another bowman who could keep attention off of him. Why not the Hood, the figure who had done the most to make people believe again in what Starling City could be? He didn’t want them to believe. He wanted them to be delivered.

And so, he knew how he’d do it.

He’d go on TV, and challenge the Hood to fight him as the Dark Archer. In 2 hours, because there’d be no way Oliver Queen could escape, he’d announce the Undertaking anyway.

He couldn’t possibly lose.

There was no one left.

**_Outside Merlyn Global……_ **

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(Laurel Lance’s POV)

At times like this, she almost wanted to thank John Constantine. Sure, he was excessively flirty, and she was one more “innocent” pat on the back from “accidentally” breaking every finger in his hand.

But he had been an excellent teacher in casing a room, reading a person, and the skill that was the most important thing to her right now: trailing someone.

Laurel told Oliver, and then snuck out behind him in the Triumph Daytona 955i motorcycle she had learned to ride during her wild-ish teenage years. She kept a good enough distance that he never saw her, but she could keep an eye on him. Something about this whole thing seemed wrong. So, when she saw Oliver being carried out, and dumped into a limo, she knew what she had to do.

But as she snuck into her apartment, and grabbed her work clothes, she felt something like a warmth burning through her chest. Grabbing a baseball bat and some brass knuckles she couldn’t pinpoint what the feeling was, until it came to her like a thunderbolt. It was love. For everything Oliver had done, for all the horrible decisions he made, she still loved him with every last ounce of her heart and soul.

And then, right as she realized that, she also realized just how PISSED off she was that someone had kidnapped her love. She realized, on an intellectual level, that this would mean she announced herself to the city. After this worked, and she told Oliver the truth, she’d have to learn a lot more from whoever would be willing to teach her. But for right now, her anger would guide the day.

It was time to go and rescue the Hood, and bring hell to Malcolm Merlyn’s doorstep.

**_At Merlyn Global…._ **

\-----------------------------------

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

Parking her Triumph Daytona 955i in an out-of-the-way alley, Laurel Lance slipped her brass knuckles over her left hand and wrapped the baseball bat around her right with an impromptu scabbard. She knew what she had to do. If Ted were here, instead of icing his perpetually wrecked knees, he’d agree with her. Wildcat was not a violent man, not really. But even he could understand how far one had to extend themselves for love. And so, pulling the balaclava on over her face, Laurel made a vow: No matter how many broken limbs stood between her and her love, it would be enough. She could feel guilt later, feel remorse for hurting people who were just doing their job. Oliver was up there, and he was in danger.

Walking through the loading docks, the first security guard she saw got backhanded with a fist full of brass knuckles before the second got a turning side kick to the ribs, and then a question mark kick to the face. As she walked up the stairs, she clobbered people with baseball bat shots, kicked some people so hard they flew into walls and were knocked out cold, and hit whoever was in front of her with all the force and anger she could muster. As she made her way into the sub-basement, she was no longer thinking. This was a dance. Person swings wildly with an overhand? Grab the wrist, bend it back until it bulges, and then knee them in the face. Someone tries to grab her around the waist to control her? Elbow in the jaw, blind hook kick to the face, and baseball bat to the ribs.

After a while, she could idly notice her lungs burning. Dipping into a break room, she opened up a refrigerator and guzzled down an entire gallon’s worth of water. If she was going to do this, and rescue Oliver, she’d need to move with speed.

**_Meanwhile, in the Merlyn Global Executive Conference Room…._ **

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(Malcolm Merlyn’s POV)

How? HOW? **_HOW?_**

There is no way any of this could be happening. He had surveillance cameras throughout his entire headquarters, and there was no way anyone would have been reckless enough to even think about the possibility of just walking into his building and fighting their way up to where he was. And then, he saw her. That damnable woman who was being a street hero in the Glades. He had never considered her to be a problem, and now here she was fighting his best security like it was some Hong Kong action film. These were people trained by the Spestnaz and GIGN, and here this woman was going through them with no problem.

What did he have that she wanted so badly? And then, it hit. He had Oliver Queen. Which meant, and he was embarrassed that he didn’t see it earlier, that the woman fighting into his lobby now was the same woman who had always had an intense relationship with him. And she probably always would. Dinah Laurel Lance was kicking his security’s ass, and he didn’t quite know how to feel about that. 

But while he wasn’t sure how to feel about the information, he was damned sure of what to **DO** about it.

Picking up his phone, the Dark Archer made a phone call.

“Jade? Are you here? Good. We’ve got a situation. Leave Mr. Queen. I’ll handle him personally.”

Grabbing his gear, leaving his door open, Malcolm heads deeper into the recesses of his office, inputting a code into a keypad and then walking down a flight of stairs.

“Well, Mr. Queen. Isn’t this an interesting development? It seems your love has come to save you” Malcolm says, knowing Oliver Queen is knocked out cold and can’t answer.

It was time, he supposed, for his plans to go into overdrive.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

On an objective level, Dinah Laurel Lance knew that there was no way she should ever be having this much success. She was a blue belt in kickboxing as of a few days ago, and the people she was fighting were highly qualified. This just served to remind her she’d have to find new trainers, people who could teach her above and beyond what Ted Grant could. This wasn’t an insult to Ted, of course, but rather a reminder that there is always more to learn.

But for right now, she supposed as she dispatched the security guards on the upper floors and headed to the elevator banks, she realized anger was guiding this. And then, like looking up at a mountain and realizing there’s a whole extra level you have to pass before you can get to the top, the elevator door opened and there stood this giant woman who could have been a dead-ringer for a literal Valkyrie standing in front of her. This was going to require some effort, some tactical thinking, and a good bit of luck.

Dropping what is now a bloody baseball bat and brass knuckles nearly bent from the workout they’ve gotten, Laurel Lance sighed and put the weapons down before moving into a pretty good kickboxing stance. And as she tried everything she had seen the black belts do, she realized the difference between the people she had beaten when she was just fighting off of anger and what she was dealing with now.

This big bodybuilder-looking woman in front of her wasn’t just some security guy. She was bigger than her, stronger than her, and had been notified she was coming.

Throwing her first high kick, and watching as it was blocked as though she had telegraphed it from across the street, Laurel realized she needed her weapons. Reaching to grab her baseball bat she watched in horror as this big woman, whose nametag says “Jade Diamond, security specialist”, broke it and tosses the shards out an open window. And then Jade was on her, throwing flurries of crisp Thai boxing and even grabbing Laurel in a loose clinch to drive knees into her midsection. No matter what she tried, whether it be open-hand strikes to the body or butterfly and corkscrew kicks to the head, none of them landed with any real force. She realized now, perhaps for the first time, that Ted Grant had been right. She really did need to learn a whole lot more, and there were people who could teach her what she needed to know. But for right now, there was no time to think of that. All she could do was hope to survive, and try to figure a way out of trouble.

Tossing her like so much garbage into a corner Jade strutted confidently towards her opponent.

“You’re no threat, no threat at all. After I’m finished with you, I’m going to go and find Oliver Queen and I will break his body, his spirit, and his mind. There will be nothing left of the man you came to save” Jade said, and at that exact moment, Laurel saw red. She could think of nothing else but saving her love from harm.

And as she screamed “NO!” she saw the sound waves of her scream send Jade Diamond flying up against the wall, where a small walkie-talkie flew out of her pocket right before she hit the ground in a lump and lay unconscious.

Grabbing the walkie-talkie, blotting off the blood on her lip that feels and looks dangerously close to being split, Laurel turns it on and asks one question with a statement.

“Where are you, Malcolm? Because I’m coming to get the Hood back, and then we’re going to stop you. **_Both of us_**.”

**_In a Merlyn Global executive conference room_** ….

\----------------------------------------------------------

(Oliver Queen’s POV)

He had been beaten on for hours. Merlyn’s handpicked security team, including what may have been the biggest woman he had ever seen, and then Merlyn himself had taken joy in chaining his hands to the wall, tossing away his bow and quiver full of arrows, and then hammering on him.

So, he believed that what he was hearing was just his mind trying to find some way, some outlet, to deal with the pain. Because, logically, there was no way Laurel had stormed into Merlyn Global like a one-woman SWAT team to try and rescue him. That made no sense. She couldn’t fight like that, and besides, Laurel didn’t, couldn’t, love him that way.

And yet, as he was untied from his chains as Malcolm Merlyn told him where both he and Malcolm were, he began to realize it was true. Somehow, and he’d thank her for this, Laurel had decided she wanted to save him just like he had saved her.

(Malcolm Merlyn’s POV)

He could beat them now. He was absolutely sure of it. Sure, he would have preferred to not fight. If he could have done all this without firing a single shot, he would have. That was the thing about the League that had always drawn him to their works, and probably always would. If you could beat someone without fighting them, purely down to stealth or superior thinking, why wouldn’t you?

But this was different. This was a fight he knew he had to have. And if he was going to do it, it would be done with honor. He wouldn’t just slit Oliver’s throat, and watch as Laurel watched him bleed out. That’d be fun, sure, but it wouldn’t **PROVE** anything. Beating them both, and making them watch as he destroyed their city while they were powerless to do anything but see it happen, would let them remember that for as good as they thought they were, there is always someone better, someone smarter.

So, as Laurel kicked in the door and a security guard went flying right before she stood in a kickboxing stance that put him in the mind of someone who had watched some martial arts movies and done a little bit of sparring, he was going to fight what some were calling the Romeo and Juliet of Starling City. But there wouldn’t be any poison tonight. Instead, he thought with an evil smile on his face, they’d die together.

(Laurel Lance’s POV)

There they were. If it wasn’t so tragic, it’d actually be kind of funny. Oliver Queen slumped in the middle of the room, exhausted and looking at her with absolute love and adoration in his eyes. And there stood Malcolm Merlyn, with what looked like two detonators in his hands.

“So, here’s how this is going to go. We’re going to fight, all three of us. If you and the Hood over there can beat me, you get to hit the little blue button on this switch that de-activates the two earthquake devices I’ve installed under the city. If you can’t, be prepared to watch me destroy your home with your last breath. Worse than that, I’ll make sure the both of you are blamed for it” smirks Malcolm, getting into a fighting stance that both neither Oliver or Laurel had seen before.

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Waiting carefully until they both stood up and didn’t show too many more signs of being exhausted, the fight begins. Malcolm calmly, like he’s sparring with his son, proceeds to defend himself against everything they can come up with. Before too long, he’s got them both in a deeply compromised position. But when he throws Laurel into a light fixture, sending little shards of the lightbulb flying, Oliver grabs a shard and knows what he has to do. Crawling on his forearms as Malcolm fights Laurel and nearly has her down and beaten Oliver proceeds to stab Malcolm through the heart with the shard of lightbulb before kicking him out of the window.

Glancing at the love of his life, Oliver Queen kisses Laurel Lance and tells her the truth.

“We’re not good enough for this. We need a vacation, and we need to train. When we come back, we’ll do this together.”

And, they did. From when they returned after finding archery teachers for Oliver, and a martial arts tutor named Lady Shiva for Laurel, to their last breaths as a couple, they did everything together.


End file.
